Having faced an academic year like no other, the Royal College of Art’s fashion department made sure to close off the graduating term in a similarly unforgettable and unconventional style. The result was Voyager.
Voyager was not simply just a documentation of the year’s work, but also of the year itself, collating all of the now-digital workshops, projects, lectures and events that would have previously been in-person. It was the role of Voyager to translate these experiences in a way akin to the tone of the year; manifesting the precious work of the students in an unpolished, unintimidating and accessible form that is also, in its own way, experiential.
Taking place in Victoria Park, the launch event of Voyager harboured not only the final get-together of the students but also the artistic unveiling of the book. Boldly embodying its final cuboid form, the book became a physical structure in its own right, yet in the same breath challenged this observation and its own definitions through the eccentric compositions within it.
Voyager became reminiscent of a sketchbook, taking a dual form referencial to both a working object and a serial document. Both commodity and tool. Expressing the individuality of each student, each book is likewise unique, using its own off-cuts to construct the page of its contents, as well as the book’s external wrapping; thereby using the process of its creation as its own artistic expression.
